Feral Presence
by Eve L Powers
Summary: years have passed since the Kyuubi had been sealed into a baby Uzumaki. But things will not progress as they would have as a figure appears, one who's connection to the lost Uzumaki clan will not tolerate the treatment the last known Uzumaki has been subject to. LATEST CHAPTER FIXED! PLEASE LEAVE REVIEW IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN! THANK YOU!
1. Chapter 1

Return

 **Hello readers! I Eve L Powers have brought you something interesting to read!**

 **Now before you begin, if you hadn't noticed from the summary, I have in fact, inserted an OC of mine into this story.**

 **Before you screech in horror or call blasphemy on me let me explain!**

 **if you're still here then good, ahem.**

 **I've seen multiple stories like this one where the world is mostly the same with either a minor OC addition that has no more impact then to add a friend to our favorite hero's friend list, or a major addition who makes a major impact that can change the story and swerve it a whole new direction and loosely follow cannon.**

 **I'm doing something of a mix between them, as Cannon will be followed about 70% as far as storyline goes, with the other 30% being what gets influenced by the insert of my OC.**

 **In this my OC is in fact going to have a connection to the Uzumaki clan in general, and so will not be happy for our blond protagonist's cannon and authors prerogative that you see often.**

 **warning, I will have the civilian council as they are a useful tool for some authors, myself included, to explain why a few things happen the way they do.**

 **If you're still here, enjoy!**

Kakashi Hatake was a simple man of simple tastes and beliefs.

Well, a simple ANBU captain and one of the strongest Jounin of The Hidden Leaf under lord Third Hokage anyway,

But that didn't mean he couldn't be like any other red blooded man, as evidenced by his fine, fine choice of literature; Icha Icha Paradise! He gave a giggle as he flipped a page, single visible eye crinkling in joy as he walked the trail back to the Hidden Leaf. Now normally he wouldn't get the time to do this out in the open, being an ANBU captain and all, but recently lord Hokage had given him a solo mission that had gone extremely well, in fact he was ahead of the expected schedule by a week! With that in mind and having sent the message of his mission being completed only this morning, he felt he had earned himself a bit of free time to peruse his new favorite literature. Truly lord Jiraiya was a genius author!

He'd been traveling in this same fashion, ANBU mask hidden and nose in a book, for the past three hours, with another three left before he'd have to slip his mask on and report to the Hokage for his verbal report. Sighing happily he couldn't imagine a better day.

And like that he unintentionally cursed himself to unleash hellish nightmares upon his mind. At that moment a cold chill slipped down his spine, much like an ice cube having done the same, even the feeling of liquid slipping down his...no wait that's the cold sweat that just sprouted everywhere on his body as the feeling of dread began to press on him like a blanket made of lead.

"Good to see your senses haven't dulled from reading that trash boy."

The feeling of dread doubled in intensity as Kakashi slowly turned his head to look behind him and paled as who was behind him gave him no relief whatsoever.

Turning to face him slowly gave Kakashi the time to assess the person, if the being could be called that at all. Covered in a black cloak that covered from the head to the ankles, Kakashi felt the only human qualities visible were the body shape, as two black combat boots were visible under the cloak and the arms folded across the beings chest, that's where the similarities ended as Kakashi met the cold golden yellow slit irises that were visible from the endless shadows the cloaks hood seemed to cast over the others head.

Giving a dry swallow he managed to screw enough courage to reply. " I-it's been a long time...Feral-sama."

The other nodded. "Indeed, I've been gone since _that_ night, keeping busy and what not."

'That night' as Feral put it, was in fact October tenth, eight years ago, the day Kyuubi rampaged through the Hidden Leaf until Kakashi's teacher, the Fourth Hokage, defeated the beast, sealing it away into a child born that same night, sacrificing himself in order to complete the seal, along with his wife Kushina Uzumaki, into their just born son Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze.

Kakashi knew the child's true identity, but between being far too young and then having drowned himself in ANBU duties he'd been unable to truly take care of the boy like he should have, being instead the person to leave fresh food in the boys fridge in his apartment and watching him on the boy's birthday to ensure the more foolish villagers didn't get any ideas. The boy would never need to know the three 'disappearances' he'd be later blamed for were the result of three separate villagers being drunk enough to attempt to harm the boy. The Hokage suspected his ANBU captain DOG, but the sheer lack of evidence was enough for the aged Kage to leave it alone.

Back to present however.

Feral shifted himself to stand beside Kakashi, and kept walking, a clear enough sign to Kakashi to walk alongside him as they were now both headed towards the Leaf.

"How have things progressed since my absence?"

Kakashi had stowed his book away, knowing his usual lackadaisical attitude would not be tolerated by his travel companion. "We've been recovering for the most part. The Third had to take over again to keep everything running relatively smooth."

The hooded head nodded as if expecting that. " I've heard plenty while away, Sarutobi took over again, expected and unwanted, but needed. The other nations fortunately are still recovering from the war to even consider trying to invade, that or their Daimyo's forbid them to."

Kakashi nodded in response. Most of the Jounin and ANBU force had to be kept on constant alert in order to respond to any possible invasion, fortunately nothing happened for the first few years after Kyuubi.

"Tell me about this business with Kumo."

Kakashi sighed knowing this would infuriate the other and began to retell what he knew of the incident. "It was supposed to be a treaty for peace as far as we knew. The Hyuuga clan being our chief diplomatic clan offered the ambassador a place to stay during the negotiations with the Hokage. He was there three days and from what I observed during my duty as the Hokage's guard the final day, the specifics seemed to please the ambassador and lord Third. There was a minor celebration in the village that night, and that was enough for the ambassador to slip into the young heiress's room and kidnap her. The now known Ninja managed to get outside the walls of the village before we were aware of her absence. The clan head, her father, flew into a rage beyond anything I'd ever seen from a Hyuuga and went to pursue, eventually finding and killing the culprit. I was the next at the scene and got a newfound respect for their fighting style, I never knew it was possible that and overpowered juken strike could blast a hole in a target on contact."

The rage Kakashi felt from his companion was almost enough to make him choke before the last sentence managed to drop his rage a fair amount as he let out a snort.

"Course it does, I taught him how."

That surprised the last Hatake as he looked at his companion in mild shock.

"Don't give me that look, that brat told me I'd have to give some minor lessons to her friends as well as her."

The brat in question was one Kushina Uzumaki. Thinking back, Kakashi could recall a handful of times she had mentioned the enigmatic Feral or had once or had called him sensei when they were together.

"More current events now, the Uchiha clan."

Kakashi winced, and retold the story about how in one night, his fellow ANBU captain, one Itachi Uchiha had slaughtered all but his younger brother in the clan then fled the same night.

Surprisingly the feeling of choking didn't return as the tale was told, glancing to the side he was surprised that the yellow eyes seemed to show a general lack of empathy or even a shred of any emotion to to indicate his companion cared about the large amounts of death.

"I see, shame. Well, now my most important question; How is the last Uzumaki?"

Now Kakashi felt truly nervous, Feral had long since been known to have some connection to Kushina and Uzumaki's in general, and the knowledge that the village in general could care less that her son could die and it be celebrated like a holiday would most definitely set the cloaked man off in the worst of ways.

As if sensing the Hatake's discomfort the hidden face turned to face him, the fell orbs seeming to bore holes into the side of Kakashi's face, was that smoke he was smelling?!

Feral stopped walking and as if ordered Kakashi did is as well, the yellow eyes narrowed. "You reek of emotions that don't paint a pretty picture boy. Care to guess what they are?"

The mans' tone easily showed Kakashi that he knew what emotions those were; fear, regret, bit of anger, and again, fear.

The breath was knocked from Kakashi's lungs as he was slammed back into a tree, Ferals gloved palm slamming beside his head, effectively snapping the tree in half to fall behind him, the baleful gold eyes now glowing with a fury that Kakashi hadn't ever seen from the man before.

With a voice that would melt glaciers and freeze hell Feral ground out. "Tell. Me. Everything."

And so he did, Kakashi told Feral how the Hokage had come out the day after, mere hours after Feral had left for whatever reason, and announced how the Fourth had defeated the beast, sealing it into a baby Naruto and how the Fourth's final wish was that the boy be seen as a hero for his unknown sacrifice. Needless to say that had gone over the majority of the villagers heads and a handful of the shinobi as well and the more ignorant had began calling out for the baby's death. The Third retaliated making any mention of the fox to the younger generation or to the baby when it grew up an offence punishable by death. For a time it seemed to work but the animosity aimed to the child unfortunately would be carried over to the children, making the child lonely in the orphanage. The clans would hold no general dislike for the child but they still held a sense of wariness for the orphan, this also led the clan children to unfortunately isolate the boy, save for a small handful of misfits. Kakashi would have tried to conveniently 'forget' mentioning the attempted assaults on the boy he foiled but those golden eyes seemed to compel him to tell that as well.

Throughout the report the dread that clung to Kakashi grew with each fact, towards the end black spots began to come into the ANBU's vision before it lifted from him. Gasping out a breath he allowed himself a moment to get himself breathing normally. As a ninja, an assassin, a loyal shinobi of the village Hidden in the Leaves, and veteran of the Third Ninja War, he had felt killing intent of varying levels from different leveled ninjas from fresh genin to seasoned Jounin, he had even felt the killing intent from his sensei and his wife. Of all the various killing intent he had felt only two had truly stood out to him, his sensei and his sensei's wife, of the two his sensei's had a feeling of inevitability that warned others away, but his wife's, the Uzumaki woman… she had been the one to inspire terror in him as her killing intent had a physical manifestation in her hair splitting to resemble nine tails as her face became shadowed with glowing eyes. But now… He knew who taught her killing intent like that.

Feral gazed down at him with a look in his eyes that screamed murder as he growled out, a guttural sound that rattled Kakashi's bones.

"Run back to the leaf boy. Run back and tell him. Tell him I'm coming."

Shakily nodding KAkashi scrambled to his feet and dashed away at his top speed, even then he felt the baleful orbs glaring into his skull even as he heard the enraged man yell out after him as he disappeared in the distance.

"Tell him I'm fucking coming!"

Eight minutes of running is usually nothing to any experienced Shinobi, Eight minutes of sprinting at top speed is of course more difficult but to a Jounin it's still easily done so long as they are at top condition.

Eight minutes of sprinting top speed while forcing Chakra through your body to increase your speed further again all the while not bothering to even adjust for anything in your path such as bushes, branches, or wildlife?

Kakashi proved it was possible, so long as there was sufficient motivation. Though the squirrel that was currentlyhanging onto his Hitai-ate would argue, he felt his travel time was impressive. Well in the back of his currently preoccupied mind it was present, but the forefront was currently worried about what Ferals actions once reaching the leaf would be. Best case scenario the villagers would be left alone as Feral took out his frustrations on the Hokage, worst case Feral burns the entire village and kidnaps the young Uzumaki.

The eternal Chunin duo, Izumo and Kotetsu once again manned the gates to the Leaf Village, it had been an average day for them, minimal traffic with an occasional traveling merchant that required a thorough search. Overall it had been any easy going day for the friends. That is until a sudden blur and massive gust of wind blasted by them, knocking them over from their chairs in a heap along with the papers they held in the guardhouse.

Izumo recovered first grunting as he pulled himself up to look over the desk. "The hell just happened?!"

Kotetsu groaned managing to get untangled from his chair. "No idea, but the sensors haven't alerted us to any foreign chakras coming, so it must be a friendly, probably going to the Hokage with something urgent."

Izumo nodded with his own groan as he saw the mess of papers they'd have to clean up.

In the Hokage tower Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed as he was finishing up the last set of papers for the day, before noon! It was shaping up to be a great day! First DOG had sent a scroll detailing his successful mission well ahead of time, showing that the Leaf had efficient ninja. Second, there wasn't any meetings scheduled for the day, meaning he had more time to himself. Third, his surrogate grandson, one Naruto Uzumaki, hadn't pulled any pranks and had stayed at the academy as far as his observations through his special crystal ball had told him, thus keeping him out of trouble and keeping the resulting paperwork nonexistent for the moment. Signing and stamping his last paper he set it in the neatly piled 'done' pile and sat back with a contented sigh. Oh what to do with this extra free time?! Perhaps he could start that painting of the monument he'd been thinking of doing, or he could perhaps catch up on his reading of his student's cough smut filled cough book? Well he knew for sure once the Academy let out at three he'd go visit his third favorite blond and maybe treat him to some ramen, but he had a little over three hours before that would happen.

Deciding that he didn't want to put much more effort into something at the moment he slipped an autographed first edition version of Icha Icha from a hidden compartment in his desk and settled back to read, a slight giggle had barely managed to slip from his mouth before the office doors broke off their hinges as a body tumbled along with them.

Hiruzen, with an action faster then what should be possible for a man his age tossed his book straight up, the book breaking through the ceiling and narrowly missing the head of the hidden ANBU guard , a half second later Hiruzen had pulled out two kunai hidden in his sleeves and was ready for the assassination attempt that dared ruin his day as his guards appeared from their spots, weapons at the ready. It was a surreal moment as the on guard ninja finally took stock to see that instead of an assassin it was instead one Kakashi Hatake who looked much worse for wear, scratches covered the man head to toe, and a half dead squirrel seemed to have a death grip to his hitai-ate as it breathed in soft pants, with Kakashi not faring much better.

Setting the Kunai aside Hiruzen rushed around the desk and helped the clearly panicked Hatake to a sitting position. Once the one visible eye made contact with Hiruzen's own he saw Kakashi lose some of the tension in relief.

Concerned at what could have caused such an extreme reaction from the normally unflappable man Hiruzen asked, "Kakashi what happened? Your report said you suffered no injuries yet you look like you've fought Tora to the death!"

A particular cat themed ANBU held her chuckle as those injuries did seem common with victims of Tora's ire, and had the slightly crazed look not been on her captain she'd have let a chuckle out.

Kakashi took a moment to calm his ragged breathing down enough to reply before turning to his leader and said in the calmest voice he could manage. "Feral is back...and he's pissed."

Let it be known that more often than not, life changing sentences often are less than ten words. From a woman replying to her long time boyfriend who asked for her hand in marriage 'yes', to a wife telling her husband 'I'm pregnant', and then a doctor telling the expecting couple 'It's a boy'. Of course, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen was more fixated on the simple six words that had escaped his subordinates mouth.

In the aged Kage's life few had ever given him pause in terms of raw power, foremost in that list were his sensei's, his predecessors of his hallowed office, Madara Uchiha who had been considered the first Hokage's only true equal on any level, Hanzo the Salamander who had defeated and subsequently named the three Sannin, his Genin team he had trained to become legends of their own right.

Feral was an unknown. He had been an unknown since the day he had been introduced to the cloak wearing man by his sensei Tobirama when the said enigma had arrived to visit Hashirama's wife lady Mito. Even as a child he had felt a sense of unease at the figures power, power that seemed near equal to Tobirama's own power, unease that never ceased even as he grew into a legend, Feral still gave Hiruzen a look that told him that he saw him as nothing more than a child. When the fall of Uzushio came, he had returned to Konoha to inform an elderly Mito and young Kushina the tragedy. Mito had proclaimed the man as Kushina's guardian, to which he agreed and had begun training the girl for her future duty as a Jinchuuriki for the Kyuubi, and her career as a shinobi.

Presently Hiruzen could only sigh with trepidation as he turned towards the windows looking out to the village and stared down the main road towards the main gates. He knew why Feral was, as Kakashi put it, pissed off, had he been twenty or more years younger he'd have felt much the same rage. Looking back even now he couldn't fathom what had convinced him to share the information of the newborn baby Jinchuuriki with the ENTIRE village. Yes that had been his first major mistake. Even now far better ideas of what he could have done, should have done at the time. Anything but tell the population the source of the previous nights carnage was now sealed in what could only be seen as the most easily killed thing in the world.

His mistakes now apparently were coming back to haunt him and punish him appropriately.

The futilist thoughts were given form as a feeling of dread enshrouded the entire village, effectively freezing the population in their tracks, every ninja from the clans to the clanless tensed and turned the direction they sensed the sensation, those inside buildings or clan homes exiting and taking to rooftops to get a better view. No doubt those who had felt this before had moved the fastest in order to confirm their suspicions...or horror.

"That man truly is a monster."

Hiruzen nodded at Kakashi's words as he saw what made its way to the gates, a massive silver furred wolf, the size of the Toad summon boss Gamabunta has approaching in a leisurely gate.

A massive, silver furred, blood soaked wolf.

In the back of the minds of Hiruzen and Kakashi, they felt impressed on the sheer control of the man's killing intent.

YEs the wolf wasn't real, but that made it no less terrifying to those who could see it. While the average civilian would only feel the dread the killing intent gave off, only the ninja forces, young old and retired would be able to see the wolf, thus keeping the civilians from truly panicking as if Kyuubi had been freed again.

When it reached the gate however the wolf, and the killing intent seemed to fade away to nothing, civilians started moving again, rushing to their homes as they knew something bad was coming even as the ninja tensed ready for the other shoe to drop.

They wouldn't have to wait as the air pressure seemed to shift, giving Hiruzen his only warning as an old memory played of the last time he felt this sensation.

"Take cover and shield your ears now!"

His subordinates didn't hesitate as they blurred from sight even as Hiruzen himself ducked in front of the desk and hurriedly stuff cloth he tore from his robe into his ears.

None too soon as well.

"SA!"

"RU!"

"TO!"

"BIIIIII!"

As each part of his name was howled out Hiruzen watched the visible part of his windows shake harder and harder, as the last syllable stretched out he felt the air pressure change again feeling air rush past him even as the windows shattered inward, flying with enough force for the numerous shards to embed themselves into the wall inside his office and the wall outside his open doorway, glancing to the side he grimaced seeing shards piercing through his desk that had they not been stopped would have pierced him everywhere. Feeling the worst was over he stood up shakily, his rattled bones making it slightly difficult.

Moving to the now open windows he grimaced seeing that _every_ window between the Hokage Tower and the village gates had shattered from the noise and air pressure that had passed by it, a few ninja he could see were knocked down holding their ears and covered in cuts from glass, but thankfully it seemed the most damage suffered were ruptured ear drums, at least the moving bodies showed no was dead...for the moment.

Shifting his attention to the gates he flinched as he could feel those glowing yellow eyes, eyes much more terrifying than his snake obsessed students could ever be, lazer focused on him.

"I may not survive to see the sunset…"

 **There we go, chapter one done and ready to see!**

 **So an brief explanation, I'm not too chuffed about using the japanese version of the names for various techniques or places, but there may come a time or two they slip in such as the Rasengan or Konoha, but again it's my choice in that, but I'll do my best to keep it one way or the other.**

 **Now to explain the obvious OC's appearance a bit more for those who may question it, think of an ankle length coat with the hood up in pure black, combat boots, and gloved hands. For the face, it's currently unable to be seen except his eyes which have slits like the Kyuubi/ Kurama, but yellow**

 **The blood soaked wolf is an apparition of killing intent, sort of like what Zabuza does on the bridge facing Gato, only more advanced. Explanations of this will be done in a later chapter**

 **The windows being busted is a mix of sound reaching high decibels and sudden air pressure, for those wondering**


	2. Chapter 2

Meetings beatings

 **I'm back. Now for those who are following this story and any future stories, I will say this. I am an adult, who has to do adult things like working, paying taxes, attempting to find a suitable partner to date, etc.**

 **Updates will not be frequent, nor planned.**

 **I do plan to at least make a chapter for each month, maybe every other month is life gets too hectic. But I will at the very least try to keep my chapters above 4,000 words. maybe shorter if I make an omake chapter or two.**

 **Enjoy the chapter**

Hiruzen in an act of what could be called submission, moved out of his office to the front of the kage building. As he walked through the building he had to steadfastly ignore the different workers who were still trying to recover from their busted eardrums, knowing that if he arrived after Feral made it to the kage building, the damage the building would suffer from getting dragged out would be costly.

Surrealism was the theme of the hour as he pushed open the two front doors. This being surreal due to the fact the doors had previously been glass and with the recent events, now had hundreds of shards laying inside and outside the building. Honestly he could have simply walked through the door.

He suppressed a grimace seeing the damage now at ground level. The various ninja were now managing to stand up with pained groans, most holding their ears with a handful having blood seeping through their fingers, likely the ones who had covered them too late to prevent major damage.

Resigning himself to his earned - for the most part- punishment, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply to steel his nerves and to keep himself from flinching. Taking the moment to think, he was regretful that he hadn't made an updated will in the past ten years. Perhaps if he had a few hours of life left after this, he could get someone to grab it quickly so he could dictate a quick change and addition to his current will. He'd definitely leave his battle helmet to his grandson Konohamaru, and leave his pipe to Asuma.

Tilting his head back slightly and opening his eyes his only thought was; _I won't have time to alter the will…_

In front of him was the snarling visage of Feral's rage, the enormous blood soaked wolf's head loomed over him snarling down at him with a baleful gaze from red eyes that were shining with rage fueled insanity, he felt the hot breath wash over him as it let out a low growl, its lips curling back to display its fangs at him. Another blink, and the wolf was gone, and in its place was Feral who stood a mere six feet from him.

Hiruzen flinched at that, even after all these years he could never sense when this man approached, even if he made it obvious. It was like trying to sense where a particular pocket of air was!

Sucking in a shuddering breath he gathered his courage enough to speak clearly. "You're not pleased with me for obvious reasons... "

"'Not pleased' doesn't begin to cover it boy." Feral's eyes flashed as he spat out the last word like a foul piece of fruit. "You've fallen in your age, you've become weak in mind and body and you've made mistakes by the dozen!"

That confused Hiruzen for a moment. Mistakes? Was Feral concerned for more than his surrogate grandson?

Before he could question that line of thought he was cut off by Feral's growl, something not unlike a wolf as it stared down an enemy.

"Your mistakes are many and for that you will be punished."

Hiruzen stiffened, ready to fight back. It may have been a futile effort but damn him if he didn't at least attempt to resist the cold grip of the Shinigami before he was dragged off to the afterlife!

But instead of the sudden fight to the death he was expecting Feral pointed a finger at him with a slow calm that unnerved Hiruzen.

"You will not die so easily boy, I will not allow you to escape the full punishment you deserve. Instead I sentence you to suffering beyond any you've ever known! I will ensure, with the gods above, the gods below, and the gods in between the two as my witness, that not only will I ensure that the paperwork you do daily triples, but you will never, ever, learn the secret to defeating paperwork! I will issue a village wide ban to everyone to deny you from learning it from anyone that may possibly learn the secret!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi, Third Hokage for the strongest hidden village, the professor, the second God of Shinobi, fell to his knees begging for death.

"PLEASE MERCY!" Sarutobi wailed, tears streaming from his eyes, phantom cramps already forming in his hands as he imagined the increased workload to come. He didn't even know how it would be possible for Feral to pull it off but he long since knew never to question the abilities of this man, he had been witness to Feral getting revenge on his sensei Tobirama when his sensei had cheated Feral in a game of chance. His sensei hadn't left the office for a week and when Hiruzen had gone to check on him, he saw his sensei broken. To this day he'd never forget the stacks of paper taller than his sensei surrounding the desk or sitting on the desk, nor would he forget the stifled sob his sensei let out when one stack fell over.

Feral wasn't done though. "And starting next week, three times a week I will drag you to the Hokage's personal training ground, and beat you. I'll let you fight back don't get me wrong, after all, I wouldn't want you to confuse my methods to bullying. But I will beat you until you are unable to stand and then drag you through the streets and drop you at the hospital for the night."

The hokage was ready to curl in a ball and cry then and there. The only thing stopping him was what was left of his pride and the fact he knew Feral would start the 'sparring' here in public.

Feral rolled his eyes at the frankly pathetic sight of the aged man weeping openly. "Quit your sniveling. Get up, gather whatever man points you have left and get a meeting together with the council so I can do what you apparently didn't have the spine for and clean house. Now get your petting zoo, whoever isn't crying like a little bitch over me raising my voice, and tell them the council is expected to be fully gathered in ten minutes and that if needed they will drag whatever members take too long by their legs kicking and screaming into the council chambers. Get it done."

Without another word Feral faded from view, and Hiruzen gathered his wits to make the necessary orders.

The council had been gathered quickly, the clan heads had surprisingly been waiting for the anbu to confirm the suspected meeting being called before quickly disappearing in various methods of shunshin to get to the council room with all haste.

The civilians on the council were less speedy in their gathering and more than a couple had to be grabbed and shunshined to the room to make it on time, leaving them disoriented and reasonably agitated at being manhandled in such a way, but the anbu had been given explicit orders to get them there at all costs.

The three elder council members were somewhere in between as they too shunshined there but didn't quite feel the need for haste the clan heads did. Danzo in particular had scowled ever since he had to quickly leave the underground root base he had been issuing missions to his agents before the seals he had set up to alert him to someone approaching his home and he had to quickly appear in his house only to deal with the anbu arriving and telling him that Sarutobi had ordered everyone to a meeting ASAP. Looking around the room his scowl deepened seeing the clan heads had a nervous energy about them even as the civilians seemed to be mostly ruffled, likely from being escorted here so quickly. He narrowed his eyes at the various clan heads and saw they all seemed to know what was happening, something that made him scowl deeper as he was without knowledge that may be needed to deal with whatever this wretched meeting was for, especially since he had to go without any root agents to guard him as everyone her were simply too talented to slip them in unnoticed.

The doors opened and everyone looked to see their Hokage rushing in looking beleaguered and frantic, his demeanor relaxed seeing everyone present. With a long suffering sigh of relief he made it to his chair and settled in.

Hiruzen had a moment of inner debate as he reached into his robes and felt his pipe hidden away, glancing at the clock. Would Feral be cruel enough to take his precious vice?

Yes, yes he would.

Deciding to take what would may be his last smoke for awhile he pulled out his pipe and packed the tobacco in before lighting it with a spark from his finger. Breathing deep he let out a long smoke filled sigh as the seconds ticked down the deadline.

"Well well, everyone is on time, excellent, I won't have to waste time hunting."

The clan heads and advisors snapped their heads fast enough to induce whiplash at the voice, away from the Hokage they'd been eyeing in concern to the middle area between the two sides that represented the clans and the civilians, where now someone appeared that hadn't been there before.

Feral was sitting idly in a chair casually sipping what smelled like tea from a mug, looking all the world unconcerned he easily infiltrated one of the most secure rooms in the elemental nations under the noses of some of the most talented individuals the village had.

The head of the civilian council, one Seito Yoshida, an affluent businessman frowned at the sudden appearance and seeming lack of respect from the man currently drinking in front of him. While surprised like the rest of the rooms occupants he thankfully had been semi-trained to not react overtly to 'ninja tricks',having seen them often enough, and so kept a look of calm. Standing up he cleared his throat and ignored the warning looks from the clan heads.

"Excuse me sir but thi- "

Seito was caught flat footed as the cloaked stranger merely pointed at him and made a shushing noise before draining tipping his cup back to drain his drink.

Feeling incensed at the now blatant disrespect from being treated like a child of all things he slammed his fist in anger as he shouted out. "Now see here you impu-"

The cut off this time came in the form of the mug Feral had been drinking from, shattering against Seito's forehead, effectively knocking him out and sending him sprawling with a crash and getting tangled in his chair.

Before panic could set in Feral's voice sliced through the shocked silence like a sword through paper.

"When I shush you, it doesn't mean 'be quiet', it means…" He stretched the word out with a lilt of his voice as if speaking to a young child before his voice dropped into a growl to continue. " 'shut the fuck up'."

When a few of the civilian side looked ready to yell or panic, he jerked a finger pointing at them and made the same shushing sound and stared them down until they were cowed.

Snorting he turned to the rest of the assembled council. "Greetings children, it's been awhile since we've last talked. Now that the insects have silenced their chirping…"

He paused to glare at the few on the civilian side that had mustered some form of courage in their anger at being treated so flippantly, their words died in their lungs at the glowing eyes that glared at them with unrestrained contempt.

Resuming as if he hadn't paused. "Like I said, it's been so long, years in fact. Normally that would be enough to have me visit for a small chat, but with everything that's happened in my absence, I feel we need to have a heart to heart."

Feral's hidden smirk grew seeing the clan heads blanche at that. His last 'heart to heart' had resulted in most of them being hospitalized after they had gotten a bit of ego from the recently won war and he felt the need to burst those pride filled bubbles. Turning his eyes towards the three advisors he scoffed to himself. Why these three were still held with any sort of value was beyond him, another thing he'd assume Hiruzen's lost spine allowed. Ignoring that for the moment he decided to approach the current issue with his usual attitude and panache.

And of course having all the subtlety of two Bijuu fighting each other.

"You have fucked up everything in my absence, and I will be taking the Uzumaki boy under my wing before you screw that up as well."

The clan heads didn't really react, as they had suspected that the blonde Uzumaki had been the reason his ire had been stoked so much. Hiashi Hyuuga however felt a bit of relief and hope enter him, with Feral's return to monitor the boy he could possibly talk with the cloaked man and see if he could conice the man to help uphold a promise his wife held with Kushina.

Seeing Feral heading to the door Hiashi made the decision to act now. "Feral-sama if I may?"

Rolling his eyes Feral turned away from the door to look at the Hyuuga brat.

Emboldened by the lack of violent reaction Hiashi continued. "Feral-sama, given your rather… abrupt entrance to the village, perhaps it would be best to introduce yourself to Uzumaki-san tomorrow? I'm sure Hokage-sama will be making an announcement later to assure everyone that there is no need to fear an attack or anything of that sort, so wouldn't it be more practical to wait for tomorrow where you can collect the young shinobi to be at the academy? After all, with your...outburst, the younger generation will be shaken and not exactly eager to follow what equates to a stranger, bursting in and telling one of their own that you are taking him for what have you."

Feral withheld his growl that came to his throat naturally at hearing the suggestion, knowing that the logic was sound and it would save a headache from having to explain he wasn't a bad person despite sending the ninja forces to the hospital, and causing a mass panic, and looking as Kushina had described his attire and overall appearance; 'shady as hell'. Kami he missed that brat's blunt nature.

Turning to fully face the Hyuuga he quirked an unseen eyebrow at him. "And what do you suggest I do instead brat? I've already gelded and ensured torment to the hokage, and traumatized a civilian with a tea cup. I've had a rather eventful day so far so what are you offering?"

The clan heads had made a quick look at the Hokage to confirm Feral's words and flinched slightly seeing the aged man's look of depression as he was reminded of the piles of paperwork that would be his future.

Hiashi shook himself as he looked back to Feral. "Well Feral-sama I was hoping to invite you to my compound, you see with your return I was reminded of a certain arrangement made that I feel would best be brought to your attention immediately and perhaps introduce you to the one it revolves around?"

Feral nodded, knowing that brat Kushina would have no doubt done some kind of backroom deals with her friends outside his notice. Nothing sinister as that wasn't her nature, but still likely something he would develop a headache over.

Danzo was seething silently in his seat, everything was falling to pieces! He, like Hiruzen knew the power the Uzumaki guardian had physically, mentally, and even worse, politically. It was why the cane wielding man never set his sights on Kushina despite knowing she held Kyuubi within her. Feral's wrath would have made even his sensei Tobirama flinch and that wasn't something he ever wished to experience. But now he had thought he had a chance with the blond Kyuubi container without Feral around,the man having seemingly disappeared from the face of the elemental countries, only for him to return and shred every plan he had with his mere presence!

But he would not panic, no. For now he had an advantage over Feral and anyone who he couldn't persuade normally. He felt a twinge of regret that he'd be using this power so soon, but with the target in question, the returns would be beyond what benefits he had originally planned. With all the clan heads here he would normally be much more careful about using his stolen power, but with Ferals arrival it was a minor boon as everyone would be sufficiently distracted long enough for him to launch the extremely powerful genjutsu within the eye he stole from Shisui for the good of the village.

With a quick build up of chakra he stood and cleared his throat, launching the genjutsu as soon as Feral turned to glare at him. "Feral-sa-"

Pain, that all he felt as he felt his chest seem to compact around something before blossoming along his entire back as he landed on the ground outside the hokage tower. It took everything his aged body had to force his eye open to see the hole his body made in the tower wall, and only a second of time passed allowing him one thought to pass before he felt, more than saw Feral's foot slam into his chest, making him spit out a glob of bloody spittle.

 _It failed?!_

Those eyes, looking at him in silent disdainful judgement, past the man, no monsters leg with the attached foot still grinding into his chest, still looked down at him like a kami on high, like they had all those years ago when Tobirama-sensei introduced him. He hated those eyes, hated how they seemed to peer through his mask with ease and judge his very soul and found him lacking.

"You're damn fool boy." Feral growled with all the emotion his name would suggest as he pushed his foot down, getting a pained grunt from Danzo and another bit of blood to escape his lips. "I knew you'd be a pain in my ass at some point, but Tobirama insisted you had talent needed for the future. I'm so glad I talked him into giving the monkey brat the seat, no telling what damage you'd have caused, what stupidity would result with you in power before I killed you for going too far."

Cracking his eye open to give a glare Danzo could see that Feral had his cane in hand, twirling it slowly in his fingers as those baleful eyes gave him a look he knew all too well after pretending to be crippled. Pity.

"Let's make something clear here. If I was to be forced into making a comparison to what I think of you, it would be like I walked into a dark room that was holding garbage and flicked the lights on to see dozens of roaches scatter to hide away in whatever shadowy corner they can find." Feral lifted his foot before slamming it down, getting another grunt as Danzo felt a couple ribs break. Trying to disguise his intention of unsealing his modified arm he reached his hand as if to make a vain attempt to remove Ferals foot from his chest, his attempt was rewarded by getting his left hand stabbed by his own cane sword. Gasping in pain he felt his hand get moved by his sword currently piercing it over his left shoulder before letting out a pained cry as Feral stabbed the sword further, pinning his hand to his shoulder as the sword dug through the bones through to the ground beneath him. He groaned feeling the base of the sword and handle pressing into the back of his hand, letting him know the sword was fully in the ground.

"That's what I think of you. I am not above you, you are just beneath me. To continue the analogy, you like a roach, serve no true purpose, you are expendable and quite frankly more of a disturbance and unwanted parasite then any real threat. Your value is so low that even if I crushed you underfoot to be rid of you, no one would miss you except your fellow roaches, and even then they can do nothing but hope I don't step on them as well."

Feral stepped off of Danzo's chest letting him see the full council had made it outside and were now watching his mutilation in silence, the civilians who supported him were pale, likely thinking with him dead their power was crippled, and the shinobi side, the clan heads in particular watched with uncaring eyes. Feral grabbed his ankle and tugged making Danzo let loose a reluctant whine of pain as he felt his leg lifted.

"And just like that you will be removed from the living world, and life will continue on as if nothing happened. Like any insect with the nature of pests like roaches, like tapeworms, like ticks you simply have nothing to positively contribute to the world, you have no real impact other than to inspire disgust, and removing you would do no more than to satisfy a primal urge to be rid of a nuisance with a pleasing **crunch**."

To emphasize Feral slammed his elbow into Danzo's knee, snapping it audibly and making it bend backward. Two of the civilian council vomited at the sight as another fainted.

Dropping the now useless limb and seeing Danzo passed out as the sudden pain had been too much he turned to the Clan heads, advisors and kage who looked shaken at the brutality but had no other real reaction than that. He pointed a finger at Hiashi who twitched before seeing Feral point towards where the Hyuuga compound was. Nodding Hiashi started walking that way as Feral pinned the rest with a stare.

Pointing at the mangled body he said with a voice devoid of emotion, "Leave him. None of you are to help him. This is his punishment for testing my thin patience."

Without a word further he turned to follow Hiashi.

The clan heads were silent before Tsume Inuzuka, the more brash and crude among them spoke up. Taking a long shuddering sigh she shook herself. "I almost forgot how much of an alpha he was, kami above if I didn't know he was married and faithful I'd try to bag him."

Hiruzen got over his own minor shock hearing Tsume's brazen remark. Sighing he looked to them. "Go to your clans and inform them there's nothing to be worried about, explain what you can. I'll be taking Hiashi's suggestion from earlier and making a village wide announcement in a few hours."

Hiashi could only sigh in disappointment at his father. The old former Patriarch had never liked Feral and had shown his dislike on many occasions, especially when Hiashi had opted to take Feral's training when Kushina had offered and the old man had been livid when Feral improved the recently thought 'perfect' taijutsu of the clan.

But still Hiashi had hoped the years would bestow wisdom on his father to not be overtly antagonistic to Feral.

His father's limp body hanging from the wall his head was imbedded said otherwise.

Turning to Ko Hyuuga he sent the young man to fetch the clan medic and to retrieve his daughter to meet a guest.

Turning back he faced his guest who continued perusing the contract that had been the subject of conversation before his father had rudely burst in. Feral's eyes continued to roam the page for a minute before setting it down.

Sighing the cloaked man pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, That brat Kushina had made a marriage contract between her son and the daughter of her second best friend Hitomi Hyuuga, Hiashi's wife. From what he could tell the purpose was to protect the girl as while female clan heads were not against any rules or even unprecedented in the history of the clan, they did tend to receive almost twice the pressures the males had to prove themselves worthy of the headship. Hitomi had planned for two children with Hiashi as it was tradition for the head to have two, and when learning of her first borns gender had made the contract with Kushina, enacting an old hidden bylaw about dying clans that even Feral had either forgotten or didn't know about, to save her from the stress and had intended for her second born to hopefully be male and not go through the expected nightmare.

But as Hiashi informed him, the now four year old Hanabi was in fact female and would receive the same stress once she was old enough.

It was easy to understand what the Hyuuga head wanted Feral to do, accepting the contract would ease the stress on both girls as the older would be expected to dominate the younger proving the usual Hyuuga dogma about strength, but with Hiashi's explaining how the girl was much like her mother, it would backfire and the older girl would grow weak between the stress of training, the mental strain from having to fight her own younger sister, the fear of the damnable brand being put on her, and finally having the unrestrained scrutiny of the entire clan, along with her one year older cousins ire for the incident, she would become a shy, introverted, nervous wreck who would be grasping for straws to have some form of control.

Feral scowled at the thought ignoring the medic who just arrived and removed the elder as two more Hyuuga appeared with a stretcher to remove the man. While he could never truly be for a marriage contract, especially between children of all things, he could see that the brat Hitomi and the brat Kushina had meant well with this. He reread a line in the contract and was pleased that the two mothers had left an out. In the case that any one of seven people were to refuse the contract, then it would be considered void, the seven being both sets of parents, of which all four signed, the two the contracts pertains to, and in a strange twist, his own signature would be required to give the go ahead.

He smirked to himself, the brat had hated it, but she was probably glad he had hammered politics and laws into her tomato head. She had gone further to deny the Hyuuga from influencing the young girl should the contract go through, and even made it so that the seal could not be placed onto her until the contract's deadline was up, which was when both fiance's were twenty-one years of age, well past the acceptable time the seal could be placed and cutting her out from getting it entirely in a political middle finger aimed at the elders.

But still that didn't mean that it would happen. But what he was really annoyed with was the part involving him the most with...

He was interrupted from his thoughts as the Hyuuga from before -Ko? Yeah Ko- returned, escorting a small girl with short dark blue hair with twin bangs framing her face and accentuating her eyes that were tinted lavender as opposed to the normal Hyuuga white. Feral could easily see Hitomi's blood running strong within the young thing who had become nervous seeing him. Frowning he knew was appearance inspired no confidence in any young child, but still he didn't enjoy it. That and she probably just saw her grandfather being carried out on a stretcher, and a fresh hole was in the wall beside him...

Speaking softly he tried to soothe her. "It's okay young one, I'm no one strange."

Hiashi had a massive sweat drop at that failure in attempting to calm his skittish daughter. It doubled in size when his usually timid daughter turned to him with a look that screamed 'is he serious?' and had to hide his amusement and slight embarrassment by raising his sleeve to cough into before looking to her.

"He speaks the truth my child. This man is Feral-Sama. He was a teacher to your mother and I for a time and was a guardian for your mothers best friend."

Young Hinata's eyes widened as she turned to look at the stranger with new eyes. Honestly she couldn't see her beloved mother, nor her father having been associated with the man, but she knew her strict father was not one to make jokes like that.

"T-truly? You t-taught my parents?"

Feral chuckled at the slight stutter. It was times like this he could feel his age, seeing Hitomi's daughter having the same slight stutter she had in her youth before meeting and befriending Kushina who proceeded to drag the girl from her small shell

"You remind me of young Hitomi, she stuttered like you, because she didn't have any friends outside the compound. Then she met my ward, who was her first real friend and she became the confident young woman who I had the pleasure of knowing. They became teammates when they became Genin and stayed close even to the day the Kyuubi attacked where my ward died."

Hinata felt sympathy for the man, she could see in his strange yellow eyes that he did in fact enjoy knowing her mother, and felt sadness for his ward's death. She offered her sincere condolences to the man whose eyes crinkled in what she assumed was a smile.

"It's fine young one, but I am not here to talk of that. Your father asked me to come here to see something your mother and my ward had managed to do without my knowledge. You know of what is expected of you being the eldest of the clan head correct?"

She nodded. She had been explained that her training and teachings would be extensive the day after her last birthday. "Y-yes Feral-Sama…"

He waved her off. "None of that, I'm not one for formalities like that from someone so young."

The young Hyuuga was surprised. She never knew anyone outside her fellow students at the Academy who was so lax with suffixes.

Before she could continue that thought her father spoke up. "My daughter, your mother and her friend made an agreement before your birth. The contents are too much to be truly understood for your young age and will be explained in full when you are older, say…" He looked to Feral to confirm. "Genin? After that?"

Feral nodded. "Yes, they should be mature enough by then to understand the intricate parts."

Hiashi nodded before continuing. "You mother and her friend wanted you and her son cared for and treated with respect and dignity, and not as your mother put it 'the unfairness of the elder fools who would expect a child to train as a Jounin would'."

Hinata giggled slightly, remembering her mother would often be annoyed with the elders for various reasons.

Feral sighed catching her attention as he seemed annoyed for some reason. "This brings the reason why I'm here. Part of the agreement would be that instead of the training outside of your clan taijutsu you'd normally receive, you'd train alongside the son of my previous ward under me."

 **For those wondering, yes the pairing is NaruHina. Those who don't like it, don't read it. I always liked this pairing and honestly never cared for Sakura and every other female pairing outside of Konoha is either nonsensical, out of left field, or need a ridiculous amount of build up that honestly doesn't seem plausible while following the canon plotline like I'm doing. And for any pairings with girls in Konoha I feel don't work for the most part, as 80% of the girls near his age are either obsessed with Sasuke, have an interest in someone else, or too focused in their career. Hinata simply makes the most sense to me, as while she's a serious Kunoichi she still takes time to develop a relationship with Naruto ( in canon after the 4th war ).**

 **Outside of Sakura, Ino, Tenten and Hinata, other characters are simply background noise who literally disappear from sight once everyone becomes genin, and only appear again in flashbacks.**

 **And other females are simply too old for me to feel comfortable with trying to get them in a relationship with a preteen/teenager.**


	3. Chapter 3

Prank and discovery

 **Going to apologize in advance for the shortness of the chapter following this, as while I could spend more of this month writing this to make it my self induced minimum of 4,000 words I unfortunately will be severely busy and won't be in the mood for much else as I'm attending a funeral.**

 **Responding to a few comments, lalan, I gave my reasons why Hinata will be his pairing, and if that's why you're choosing not to continue reading then fine, but I'm not going to change the pairing to suit your tastes, this is my story, and I get final say in how it goes and who lives and who dies! I will not change this for you. Also, me not having Naruto seen yet despite this being a story about him is again my prerogative as the writer, I've seen several other stories that don't have him in the first or second chapter because like me, the writers, like me, are setting things up for the story to make sense.**

 **It simply wouldn't do for my OC to simply kick the door of the academy in and grab Naruto out of nowhere in the first chapter.**

 **Amusing though it may be.**

 **guest2: Shino and Fu? I've seen this pairing a couple times and I do like it, but I mentioned before, this will follow cannon heavily. I can work Naruto meeting Fu by chance as I do have a mission involving him going to the hidden waterfall but I won't say more on that.**

 **guest3: Reason he didn't destroy the eye is simple, he doesn't know about it. All he sensed was that a genjutsu was being attempted on him and he reacted accordingly. Same with the arm**

 **guest4: maybe~ who knows what my plans for her are~**

 **Mango: certainly hope that was from laughter or enjoyment, and here's the next part!**

 **One more thing to address, I am making Naruto's growth and Hinata's** **REASONABLE!** **They will not be spitting out fireballs the size of a house or punching down trees in a few months! My honest thoughts are that both of them have decent potential, with Naruto's naturally being higher given the circumstances, by graduation at age 12 it would be fair to say they'd be mid-chunin. And before some naysayer comes barking at me, recall that Kakashi and Itachi were jounin and ANBU at that age!**

Naruto smirked as he waited for his latest prank to be triggered by the store owner who had kicked him out yesterday. Soon as that old hag opened her cash register it would trigger the paint tag he had slid in when she had looked away after opening the store and flood her entire shop with neon orange paint!

The blonde whiskered child in a white shirt and black shorts giggled watching from the rooftop across the street. He did this prank for two reasons. The first was obviously retribution for being such a mean old hag and shrieking at him so hurtfully with that shrill voice!

Huffing he began to recall the previous days events. It had been an average boring day at the academy, the teachers save for Iruka had given the usual sneers and the children were almost as bad, save for those he recognised as being from clans, though a few did seem wary or just outright strange.

Then came that rage filled scream, he and the rest of the class had been feeling a cold sweat go down their back for a moment just before that, then suddenly came the ear splitting howl of what he thought was his hokage-jiji's surname, and without the warning the windows shattered though thankfully they didn't burst in, as he had taken to sitting by the window recently to stare outside to alleviate his boredom in some form or another. So he got a close up view as the window shattered into a thousand pieces before slowly crumbling from it's frame.

Truthfully that's the reason he was able to perform this prank today, as the Academy had to shut down temporarily to repair all the glass items in the building from the windows to the mirrors in the bathroom. To be honest Naruto felt thankful as the Academy was a waste of time in his young mind, all that history and other innocuous lessons that he couldn't see as being particularly useful for any decent ninja were just so mind-numbingly boring that he saw as yesterday's events as a godsend.

"'Sup kid."

Naruto barely held in the shriek of surprise that would have given him away and instead shot back in a flash across the roof trying to keep his heart from leaping from his chest as he observed the person who had so quietly invaded his personal space.

The man reminded him of The quiet guy in his class...Shino? Yeah Shino, the concealing cloak that covered most of the man's body was a dark blue, with gloved hands and a pair of boots peaking out, and his head seemed to be in deep shadow that shouldn't be possible with the raised hood hiding everything but the yellow eyes that made him think of the cat near his home.

The man broke his train of thought as he spoke again. "So, what are you doing?"

Naruto blinked at that and couldn't help by reply in kind, "What am I doing?"

The man's eyes had an amused glint as he asked again. "What are you doing?"

Naruto knowing that the man had spotted him and had probably guessed his intentions already so he went with denial, hoping to delay long enough for the prank to go off and maybe distract this shady guy long enough for him to escape before he turned him over to the shinobi for punishment.

"Oh you know, hanging around…"

The amusement in the man's eyes seemed to only increase as a small twinkle appeared in his eyes. "Hanging around?"

Naruto nodded to confirm. "Hanging around."

"Doing a prank?"

Naruto tensed knowing he had definitely been caught but the damn paint bomb hadn't gone off yet so he still needed to stall. "Doing a prank?"

"Are you?"

"No…"

The amusement never left the man's eyes as he turned them to gaze at the store the prank in question was placed. "Shame, I was hoping to see something funny."

That threw Naruto off. Strange questions aside he had expected the man to catch him and force the blond to remove the prank, but to hear that the man seemed more eager for it to actually happen brought the child to utter the most intelligible question he could.

"Huh?"

The man chuckled as he leaned on the low wall Naruto had been watching from before, looking at the store all the while.

"Like I said, I could use a good laugh. I've had a string of disappointing and annoying things happening the last couple days and I thought, seeing a nicely done prank would lift my spirits. So…" He turned to look at Naruto, his eyes crinkled in a hidden smirk. "...what did you do?"

Naruto later on would not know what compelled him to answer truthfully. Perhaps it was the positive attention this perfectly unknown stranger was giving him, or perhaps that the said stranger seemed to had genuine amusement for Naruto's handy work, but the young boy walked to the wall he'd scrambled from, making sure to have a healthy distance from the man in case he needed to bolt in case this was a trick, and gave a half hearted smirk. "A powerful paint tag, once triggered the entire insides will have a nice fresh coat, it's water washable so even if I get caught it's a quick fix."

The man let out a laugh that sounded strangely bark-like. "Bitchin', what triggers it?"

The positive reaction made Naruto's grin wider and let out a small chuckle. "When she next opens the cashregister it'll go off, she hasn't had any customers yet since it's early but one should be along soon."

The man chuckled as he sat down cross legged, his head still poking over the low walls edge to give him a view. "Well placed, and you had to have done it while she already had it open and looked away, that takes a good amount of skill for a kid your age."

Naruto gave a huff as he puffed his chest, looking up and away in a haughty manner he'd seen some snobs at the academy do when they flaunted something. "I'll have you know I take pride in my sneakiness! I've hidden myself from genin with ease!"

The man gave him an appraising look at that. "That right? That's rather impressive if your boasting has any truth to it…"

The whiskered youth bristled at the implication that he was putting on airs at his skill and was ready to give a verbal rant about his greatness before the stranger suddenly held up a finger before pointing and stating; "Show time."

Looking down Naruto grinned wide seeing a customer enter the store, and his grin grew wider seeing it was one of those stuffy old councilmen, this one in particular owned his apartment complex and had 'accidentally' turned off the hot water for his apartment before he told his Jiji about it after his third cold shower and having properly alerted the said councilmen of his problem. Of course, like usual the complaint had been met with a sneer and had been ignored.

The two didn't have long to wait as less than three minutes after the man entered they both heard a large FWOOSH! Before a wave of orange blasted the door open and shot out the missing windows into the street, and not five seconds later the same councilman came stumbling out, dripping in the orange paint before dropping to his knees and vomiting a bit of the orange paint out.

Naruto burst out laughing hard enough for tears to reach his eyes at the sight before turning his eyes to his guest and saw the man trying hard to hold in his laughter, a hand clamped over where the blonde guessed his mouth was as tears could be seen in the man's eyes, it didn't last long as the man let bent over holding the low wall and let out a howling laughter when the councilman turned, showing the back half of him had been clean of any paint before slipping in the puddle of paint he'd been kneeled in and fell on his back, thus completing the coat.

After a few minutes of the two laughing together the man wiped the tears from his eyes, letting out the occasional chuckle as he looked at the crowd now gathering below them. "Ah kid I owe you one, it's been awhile since I've had a genuine laugh like that! I used to have young ward that I cared for like a child, I met her about your age, and she too loved to prank people, and I loved to watch them as she'd show great creativity, much like you do."

Naruto grinned, enjoying the praise he could sense from the man's comparison to his...ward? Wasn't that what orphans that got adopted sometimes were called?

The man turned away from the mess below them walking to the opposite side of the roof and stepped up onto the side before he turned his head to look at Naruto again with his eyes turned up in what Naruto could tell was a smile. "You remind me so much of her, that Uzumaki girl."

Uzumaki?! Naruto was shocked at the name long enough for the man to jump from the roof out of sight, the action shook the boy enough to rush forward to peer over and see the man walking off. The young blonde's mind was awhirl from that last sentence the man had said, he knew another Uzumaki! Maybe a relative? A cousin?

Jumping from the roof and landing with a roll Naruto bolted to his feet and ran after the man. "Wait! What did you mean about that?!"

He saw the man turn a corner not far ahead of him, the young Uzumaki skid once he reached the street only to gape amazed seeing the man having seemingly teleported farther ahead about to turn another corner, shaking himself he went into a sprint to keep the man in sight, coming around the corner only to see the man still ahead by a large amount!

Weaving through the growing crowd of villagers the boy struggled to keep the cloaked man in sight and began to mentally curse his short stature as more often than not he'd lose sight of his quarry when he drew close, only to catch sight of him yet again dozens of yards away.

Had the young lad paid attention, he'd have noticed the stranger had been leading him towards the training grounds, or in particular, the forbidden training ground 20.

The trees and brush seemed to be working against him as they worked like the villagers to hide his view and allow the man to seemingly jump ahead to keep him out of reach. Bursting out of the treeline the Uzumaki paused, panting as he looked around for the man, having lost sight of him and let out a groan seeing the man had finally given him the slip as he was nowhere to be seen.

"Not bad, you managed to keep up somewhat and never gave up despite the difficulty."

Letting out a decidedly unmanly shriek Naruto whirled around,tripping over his own feet and fell on his rear, and pointed an accusatory finger at the man who had appeared behind him from nowhere. "STOP THAT! You almost made my skeleton jump out from fright!"

Refusing to look ashamed of himself the man shrugged at that as he moved to a stump and took a seat. "Not my fault you weren't aware of your surroundings. But the question of the momentis in fact, 'what prompted you to follow me."'

Naruto paused at that having almost forgotten his original purpose for following the man. Getting up he moved to stand in front of him, watching the man pull out a short pipe that he lit with a spark from his fingers snapping. Normally he'd gush at the 'awesome jutsu' but he had more important things to think about right now.

"What you said before...the person you said I reminded you about…"

The man took a puff before letting a stream of smoke out of his nose. "What about her?"

Here Naruto grew slightly nervous. "You said...you called her Uzumaki, right?"

The hooded stranger gave a slow nod as he took a deep breath. "Yes, her name was Kushina Uzumaki. She was a rambunctious girl, always going on about how she'd be the first female Hokage. It broke my heart seeing her die the night Kyuubi rampaged."

Naruto's heart sank at that, his hope that there was another living Uzumaki, possibly his only living family, was out there now lost to him.

"What's it matter to you anyway kid? You know, I don't believe I've gotten your name, yet you're here asking me questions so earnestly."

His mood deflated Naruto looked at the man and took a shaky breath. "My name is Uzumaki…"

"...Naruto. I already knew that. Seeing as Kushina told me when she named me your godfather."

 **Cliff hanger!**

 **hanging from a cliff!**

 **And that's why it's called cliff hanger!**

 **internet cookies for those who recognize where that's from.**

 **So we see our favorite blond at last and he meets Feral who enjoys a good bit of humor.**

 **going to be honest, I was going to make this chapter much longer but given everything happening I thought that would be a good place to cut off**

 **please leave a few comments and tell me what you thought!**

 **flamers will be treated like my burn pit when it's smoldering and needs to be doused**


	4. Chapter 4

Learning a bit

 **I would like to apologize for the lateness of this chapter as it's past my previously stated once a month update schedule and will apologize for the next as well. I currently work in a kitchen where the AC unit is about as reliable as the last two squares of toilet paper. Meaning that 5 days a week I return home half dead from heat and sweating out every liquid in my body, and my days off are mostly me recovering. So expect a delay for next chapter as well as its's likely going to be late August or early September before it gets posted. But who knows, maybe the people in charge of my workplace will grow a conscience and actually get a working AC unit and keep us from dying of heatstroke.**

 **Enough delays, here's the chapter!**

In his time observing the Uzumaki clan before and after their homeland was invaded and their numbers reduced to single digits, Feral had been able to make theories and confirmed facts that few could about the clan of red haired people that most couldn't. Several observations would be obvious to even the most novice ninja.

One example would be that no matter the age, or sex of an uzumaki, they were natural born powerhouses. He could easily recall how children of age 6 were able to perform a minor fireball jutsu that conjured a softball sized flame they could then throw, and would show their accuracy by using them on target posts in their fields.

Another observation that became blatantly obvious within minutes was that the entire clan didn't exactly have the same sense of normalcy others did. Or as he had eloquently put it after seeing the same 6 year old children lobbing fireballs at each other in a game of ninja tag; 'The entire clan is made of damn psychopaths!'

He'd later get the explanation that the reason the parents didn't even blink at this, was that it had become common practice to place flame resistance seals on children on their first birthday that would protect them any fire jutsu below what could be considered B-rank, which he then also learned was placed on every building or area that would easily catch fire. He would then try to drink himself to death that night after being explained all of this like it was the most normal thing.

But that wasn't on his mind now, for he now was recalling on observation that would only be made known to those who were close to any Uzumaki. The people from the land of Uzu were a people of passion, and wore their emotions on their sleeves. A happy Uzumaki would often spontaneously burst into laughter or do a silly dance. An angered Uzumaki was to be avoided as the first passerby would be subjected to an unyielding rage that would leave the poor soul in the hospital for weeks.

And an Uzumaki in love? Ugh! It was like those cheesy romance novels made real! While in Uzu he was able to avoid the sappiness that made the air thick enough to choke him that often surrounded the new couples. But when he had to become Kushina's guardian he unfortunately got an up close look at the spectacle as the tomato head had become smitten with the Namikaze brat after that attempted abduction when he had left the village briefly on a lead he'd gotten for a wayward Uzumaki that had been sighted near Kusa. When he returned to Konoha it took everything the new couple had to keep him from promptly marching to Kumo and destroying the Raikage tower in retaliation.

Feral recalled these observations as his last statement sunk into the young blondes mind and saw the boy's expression change as he began to understand what had just been revealed to him, flashing from confusion to understanding, then a came a tearful happiness as he saw there was someone who finally could show him some form of care outside his precious few people. That however was quickly removed as the tears of happiness became full of rage.

Feral was glad he shifted his pipe out of the way when he saw the anger flash in the blonde's eyes as the punch he received would have easily broken it. He had to admit to feeling somewhat impressed with the punch, any person shunin or below would have had a broken nose easily from it. Sighing Feral remained still as Naruto began to physically lash out at him, striking with numerous kicks and punches on every part that could be reached. He stayed unmoving as the Uzumaki scion was further enraged by Feral's lack of response and jumped onto the man's lap and began to rain punch after punch into the unseen face.

"WHERE. WERE. YOU?" Each word was accompanied by a punch from the crying boy. "SEVEN. YEARS! I've been alone for seven years! Who do you think you are to just walk back and say you were supposed to take care of me after being gone so long?!"

Feral stayed silent. He knew the best way to handle an Uzumaki's temper is to let them tire their rage before trying to use logic. Logic to an enraged Uzumaki was like tossing a barrel of oil into a bonfire, while standing in the barrel in question. He stayed silent holding the pipe that he'd dropped from his lips after the first punch in his hand as the small fists kept striking his face, shifting his head to keep the boy from hitting his eyes or his cheek bones. No sense the boys hand getting hurt or him getting blinded, and as tough as he was, he would be glad his face couldn't be seen as the bruises the boy was going to leave would be downright embarrassing despite having deserved it.

Minutes stretched as the blond chiulds fury began to dwindle, his strikes began losing strength first, then they began to slow as the tears came harder, a final swing missed Ferals face and clipped his hood before the boy collapsed against him sobbing his heart out. With a sigh Feral lifted an arm and pat Naruto's back letting him get it out.

"I'm so sorry kid… I never should have left. I trusted the wrong people to watch over you until I came back. I found out last week that you were left alone, and I came straight back."

Naruto snuffled and choked down a sob. "Y-you...won't leave right?"

Feral sighed. "No, I'm your guardian. The first time can be forgiven by the Kami because I had been foolish to place my trust in others, this time I'd be damned forever for forsaking my duty."

Naruto broke away and tried to rub the tears from his face, but the eyes he looked up at Feral with were still a bit watery. "L-like a parent?"

The hopeful tone that voice had nearly broke his bitter heart, but he was made of sterner stuff. "No." He hastily continued when he saw that face begin to turn heartbroken itself. "I'm not your parent kid, because I won't take that away from the two who loved you more than anything in the world. Kushina and your father poured their hearts and devotion into you from the first day Kushina found out she was carrying you to the day you were born and they tragically gave their lives for you. I'm sure Kushina and your father would be okay, hell they'd be perfectly happy for me to be your parent because they know I'd protect you like my own child."

Feral gave himself a mental pat on the back seeing he'd stopped any further waterworks and saw the boy was beginning to understand where he was coming from so he kept on. "Kid, I'm not your father and I will never be your father. To take that spot from the man who had to be dragged from the Hokage mountain because he was screaming to the world he was going to be a father would in my mind be a disservice to him. I can, however, be your cool uncle."

The look the child had made Feral have a mental fist pump as he could almost feel the child have a sense of awe and wonder. OR he was having mental issues again… best to ignore that for now.

Tears gone, though his eyes still were a bit puffy from the extended crying Naruto looked up to his 'uncle' with a question. "U-Uncle…" The word sounded so weird to him but he'd get used to it eventually. "You keep saying my mothers name, but not my father's...why?"

Well there was hope for the kids future if he was smart enough to notice that after the emotional rollercoaster.

Feral sighed putting the pipe back in his lips and lit again. "Kid, sit down. I'm going to tell you a fact of life and I want you to not interrupt me until I finish okay?"

Confused but nodding Naruto sat down in front of him/

Feral took a couple drags before exhaling out a plume of smoke. "Kid, information is power. There's no person in this world who can refute that, but they forget that that's a summarized version of it. The full saying is 'knowledge that is used is power.' What that means is that simply knowing something doesn't mean anything. You could know everything there is to know about say...a tree. From its various parts to how it grows and so on. And again, I ask you, what would that matter?"

Naruto had turned to look at a nearby tree as Feral talked and gave a slow nod. It did make sense, after all, what would knowing that a tree has leaves affect in his life?

Seeing the boy followed so far he kept going. "Now for you or me that's of course of no value, but let's say that instead of us, it's a person who is in charge of growing trees to use for lumber a that's used to make buildings. They could us that information to maybe further their career and help grow more and bigger trees. Still with me?"

Naruto nodded easily picturing everything but he was wondering what the point of this was. Feral sensed the growing confusion, he'd need to teach the kid how to maintain a poker face at some point.

"The reason I'm explaining this is that there's another fact of life that ties in to this. 'Nothing is free, it must be earned.' Now you might be wondering why this applies to you in this, well it's because your entire existence is wrapped in secrets. Secrets that if given to easily could hurt you, make you question everything you know." He held up a hand stopping the outburst from the blonde. "That's not to say you will never know, for that is wrong. You will know, but in the future and not right now."

This time the outburst came regardless, Naruto rushed to his feet with a snarl. " But you outright told me who my mother was! Why not my father?! Why can't I know who I came from?!"

A flick to the forehead knocked him back on his butt. "Because kid you earned it. Seven years without a parent or guardian? You more than earned that knowledge. Had I been able I'd have given you that knowledge three years ago. No child shouldn't know at least the name of the woman who carried them when they're four and can understand it."

That settled Naruto slightly but he still didn't like it. "But what about my dad? Didn't I earn that right as well?"

Feral sighed knowing this was a minefield with an emotional child Uzumaki. "Kid I'll put it to you like this, there are tiers for what information is, and for each tier you must meet requirements. Now currently you've reached tier three. Tier one is basic information, like your name, that you're a boy, and other general knowledge things like your age and so on. Tier two is where you learn your mother's name. Also on this you learn about me and my connection to her which will be covered later. Tier three I will talk about in a bit. Now tiers four and five require something simple enough, training."

At that the boy perked up and Feral gave a hidden smirk and cut off the questions again. "Yes training. As your guardian I will train you thoroughly to make sure you are strong. Now the information on these two tiers require a certain level of strength because the information given require you be able to be able to defend yourself adequately or else it would be useless, or given prematurely. But tier 6 is where your father's identity is and like the first two the method to gain this is simple; graduate the academy."

Naruto blinked. "R-really? It's that simple?"

Feral nodded. "Now see, knowing who your father is and if that information was to leak out would cause a lot of problems. Your father was important kid."

The blonde's eyes narrowed slightly. "How important?"

"Important enough. To put it in perspective kid, if who your father was leaked out, I'd have to stand watch for awhile because the immediate actions of at least two countries would be to either kill you or kidnap you."

Naruto gulped. "Y-yeah that's important…"

Nodding Feral took another puff. "Indeed, but between how strong I'll train you to be by then plus what I believe your mental maturity to be, I will happily inform you of everything then."

With a resigned sigh Naruto nodded looking away, clearly unhappy about it. The silence stretched a moment before he turned back to Feral. "What do I learn from tier 3?"

Feral's hidden smirk grew. "Let me tell you about the people I saw as my second family…"

Next Day

Naruto sat in the Academy, remarkably early for him much to the surprise of the other students after he'd seem to have made a regular habit of being late no less than ten minutes since the beginning of the year. Their surprise grew as the normally hyper blonde was sitting in the chair quietly though he seemed anxious about something. Most of the class wrote it off as unimportant but a handful of them, such as the pineapple-headed boy named Nara Shikamaru and a heavy coat and shade wearing boy named Aburame Shino had their interests peaked. They knew of their normally unruly classmates penchant for pranking, and both made a fairly logical judgement that the boy had set up a prank inside the classroom. Normally both boys would have no interest in either their peers activities, but the problem was that they couldn't tell who was the apparent target for the upcoming prank.

Hinata however knew the real reason Naruto was acting that way. After the meeting with her father and Feral, she'd been informed by her father that her classmate, one Uzumaki Naruto, was the son of Feral's previous ward, and they would be training together after Feral arrived the day the Academy returned back to work and would be there to pick her and Naruto up. She'd been surprised the blonde boy was who would be training with her but she was happy with it. Truthfully she kind of liked him, as unlike the other girls she never went for the broody and depressing aura of Sasuke, it simply wasn't appealing to her. The whiskered boy had a generally kind and cheerful disposition that seemed to simply draw her attention in like a moth to flame.

Glancing at the boy she fidgeted her fingers in thought _Maybe I'll finally have a chance to touch his whiskers_

Meanwhile the boy in question was internally reviewing the previous day as the academy was closed for a quick renovation. Feral had begun to weave the story of his almost extinct clan. Feral had not been overly callous but had made it clear to Naruto that his clan was reduced to single digits after the second ninja war had decimated them severely. He had gone on to say his clan had several specialties, but were most famous for the art of sealing, and were in fact so advanced with the art it inspired fear among other nations, fear that would lead to the clans numbers being crippled from the low four digits to now being a handful left, Naruto included. Feral had cut off NAruto's sadness and anger over the injustice his clan had faced when Feral chuckled as he told Naruto the figures of the fighters involved. His clan had numbered in the 2,000's while the civilian population of Uzu numbered around 10,000. According to Feral, the invading force had numbered around 48,000 strong and three Jinchuriki.

A quick explanation of what Jinchuriki was exactly, being containers of one of the various tailed beasts, and when trained properly could harness that power made it clear to Naruto that the three were equal to anywhere from 100 to 1,000 shinobi by themselves given their strengths and particular Bijuu.

During the beginning of the invasion Feral had been absent, having escorted his mother to Konoha as part of a secret program. When news came Feral had demanded the Hokage for 100 Jounin to follow him and either end the invasion, or show the invaders their mistakes.

The story had gone to show Feral had been late, as the invading force, now reduced to roughly 4,000 shinobi, and two wounded and exhausted Jinchuriki were arriving back from Uzu island via the special ships Kiri supplied to navigate the natural whirlpools Uzu had as defense, to now face a now enraged Feral and 100 Konoha Jounin who were now seeking vengeance for the blood their allies had shed. Feral had immediately engaged the Jinchuriki and killed both before turning on the rest of the enemy forces, his rage not sated.

His return to Konoha with 80 remaining Jounin had exhausted him more emotionally than anything and once reaching the village had disappeared. He would be found later by Kushina and Mito who had used her emotion sensing to find him drunk beyond coherence and apologizing for his absolute failure for having left his post. Mito, despite being an elderly lady, had proceeded to beat him into sobriety, much to his shame when Naruto laughed hard enough to fall back and roll on the ground. The elder Uzumaki had then stated that to atone for his supposed failure that he was to watch over his mother's life as her guardian.

Feral had stopped there saying the rest could wait for later. He then took Naruto back to the village and headed near the clan district, finding a singular house, easily the size of the building his apartment was in that Naruto knew had been abandoned years ago according to the villagers. Feral then sprung the surprise that this building was his parents! Feral then sent Naruto to scurry to his apartment and gather whatever items he treasured most to bring back.

Unknown at the time Feral had taken the time to properly hide any evidence of his father, but made sure there was a few photos of Kushina either alone or with a group that didn't involve his unknown father.

It said a lot when Naruto returned ten minutes later with only his backpack having the rest of his clothes and toiletries, reasoning that his food was almost gone anyway and he had been about to go shopping for more the next day.

Naruto had gone to sleep that night exhausted from sensory overload clutching a photo of his mother when she was pregnant with him, giving the camera a warm loving motherly smile. It had been enough for Feral to grab the camera from the office and snap a quick picture.

After a night with possibly the most peaceful sleep he'd ever had, Feral had awakened him the next morning for a quick breakfast of toast a slices of ham, and sent him to the academy, saying he had to go by the Hokage's office and get a few things settled before picking him up.

So lost in his own thoughts Naruto promptly ignored his nemesis, the eternal sourpuss Sasuke Uchiha when he entered last. Said Uchiha merely raised an eyebrow seeing the odd sight of the blond boy actually having arrived before him but shrugged it off before taking his usual window seat and stared outside, beginning the arduous task of not only plotting ways to kill his older brother, but ignoring the gaggle of fangirls that immediately began vying for his attention, or failing that, the seat beside him that somehow always remained empty until he arrived.

It wasn't long before their teacher, a Chunin named Iruka Imuno came in shuffling a few papers followed by his assistant Toji Mizuki. After the normal routine of settling the noise down and barking at the fangirls to return to their seats with a quick application of the demon head jutsu ( Ino Yamanaka having won the seat by the Uchiha to the dismay of the rest ) and beginning role. After a brief glance of surprise seeing Naruto early and giving a half smile, happy that his student seemed to have decided at least for the day to be serious he addressed the class. "Listen up!"

Now sure he had the collection of brats attention he continued. "Today will be starting a bit different. I want everyone to head outside and line up against the wall beside the sparring area, we have a special guest for the day, and will be waiting for us outside."

The room filled with the noise of excited murmurs and moving chairs as the children filed out, Naruto at the front with a wide grin, knowing who it was.

After a minute everyone got outside and lined up, having to wait another minute when Iruka stomped back in and dragged Shikamaru out as the boy had been dragging his feet finding the whole thing troublesome.

Doing a quick headcount so he could be sure there were no stragglers he nodded seeing everyone there. "Now before our guest arrives, I'm going to run over a bit of his history that's available to us that isn't personal or classified. Now not a lot is known about him, in fact he is possibly one of the few ninja in history that despite being renowned, is still a mystery even to his own allies."

That rose a few eyebrows and started a few murmurs of curiosity as Iruka pulled out a small booklet and cleared his throat quieting them again. "This is something that all ninja must be familiar with. This is a bingo book, which holds information about various ninja throughout the nations. For the most part, every version of the book from each nation is the same, as they all list various criminals and their bounties. This one is a bingo book from our ally Suna for example." Opening the book he flipped a few pages before turning it to show them. "As example, this one is a traitor for our village, Aoi Rokusho. After stealing a priceless artifact that belonged to our Niidame Hokage, he fled the village, and after a few other actions best left for later, he disappeared. He is a former Jounin of our village and since he betrayed us we have a bounty for his return, dead or alive."

Turning the book back to himself he flipped a few more pages finding the one he wanted a set a bookmark in it before looking to the class again. "Do not get it confused, but if you get strong enough, you will appear in one of these books someday. That is not a good thing, all it means is that you are a target, and these books make sure you can't even show your face in public lest you be attacked for the money placed over your head. The fate of all traitors is to be hunted down like rabid animals and put down like such. Kiba, for example, says he will be part of the hunter corps as their leader. Well one of their main jobs is to hunt traitors when intelligence of their location is found."

Internally smirking seeing he had the classes attention, though also crying internally as they'd never been so attentive to his lectures he tossed the book to Shikamaru who had been placed at the end of the line-up. "That's not the point though, the point is that once you reach a certain level of notoriety, you get placed in the book. Konoha's own book will list particularly strong shinobi of other nations as a warning so that you would know to avoid conflict, after all if you're a chunin like me and you suddenly find yourself facing a random opponent, you'd probably like to know if the person is a fellow chunin, or a jounin who you need to evade. Now to the point. That particular edition is the most recent version released from Suna and has the most up to date information on our guest available to other nations. Shikamaru if you'd please take a look and pass it along?"

With a sigh and quiet muttering of 'troublesome' Shikamaru opened the book to the marked page and scanned it quickly, frowning at it before passing it to Choji who had moved beside him before closing his eyes to go over the pages information.

The page had a square that from seeing the other page indicated it was supposed to be a photo, but was just blank, and a single word for the name; Feral

Below that was a list of titles, from what the Nara could guess. Most were the sort of thing that was common in history like 'Konoha's white fang' or 'Yellow flash' but for this Feral character, he simply couldn't understand the title 'mountain king', or 'Bloody wolf', though he admitted the second sounded kind of cool.

Below were a list of stats for various Shinobi skills like jutsu or taijutsu, but that was of little help as most were simply marked 'Assumed Kage-level' save for Genjutsu which was marked 'Uknown'.

The last piece of information available was his rank. Being son of the Jounin commander Shikamaru was familiar with the ranking system, and knew that it went from D, usually reserved for genin and lower tier chunin, up to SSS, of which only two Ninja had ever been bestowed that dubious honor, Hashirama Senju, and Madara Uchiha. He also knew that various kage, including the second, third, and fourth Hokage had been marked as SS and a few from other villages also shared that ranking. But thinking back to the page he had a slight cold sweat when he saw that beside the ranking, it read; SS?

But that was it. No age, no defining characteristics that could be given outside a photo, hell his cursory glance at the other page showed that there wasn't even a place of birth, but when it reached the part marked 'Affiliation' all that was placed was a question mark.

Down the line most were confused at the - information wise - blank page, a small handful had thought that perhaps the guest was the other full page, but dismissed that as it had an Iwa nukenin that shared a minor similarity with their Yamanaka classmate, said blonde scowling at the man for having 'her hairstyle' before passing it along with a huff.

Naruto who had been next to her took one look at the page and smirked at it before passing it along.

Iruka had been watching their reactions to the page and had withheld a snort of amusement seeing the confusion he knew was on his one face when the Hokage had informed him earlier much the same way he was now with his students.

Ignoring the last student who received it, the Uchiha boy, he gave a cough to gather their attentions again.

"Now you've seen the page in question, you might be wondering, why there's little to nothing on it, yes?" Getting a few nods he continued. "The reason is simple. No records actually exist of him. He essentially, doesn't exist."

Now that that got a handful of widened eyes, and not a few confused face. Though Shino Aburame gave his clans signature raised eyebrow, their version of a loud gasp.

Nodding he went on. "All there is that exists of him is verbal testimony from eyewitnesses. Which for some others in that book is about the same, but they usually have previous documents that are later added in to fill in gaps. I was much in the same boat as you when the Hokage called me to his office this morning, and was willing to give me a few facts that you won't find in that book. Though they may be unbelievable in nature, Hokage-sama has assured me he spoke nothing but the truth."

Stealing himself he took a breath recalling the conversation and sallied forth. "Feral-sama, is, as Hokage-sama put it, a 'true shinobi'."

That even brought Shikamaru's attention fully onto him.

"Our first Hokage, when he and Madara Uchiha worked together to make this village, and created the Shinobi system we know today, provided us his views as to what a shinobi is. A shinobi by his own words is 'He who endures, He who grows, and He who conquers.' Sandaime-sama has told me that all four Hokage have declared that Feral-sama embodies that definition."

That sent a few murmurs up and down the line before Iruka clapped to silence them. Giving a knowing smirk he spoke up. "But a few fancy definitions and lack of information I'm sure isn't enough to convince you all of his importance, so Sandaime-sama provided me a short list of our guests various accomplishments, at least those not under orders to be kept secret."

Pulling out the paper he cleared his throat before starting. "While not the first, but the start of when Feral-sama began to work more closely to Konoha, his first mission, was to lead a contingent of 100 Jounin's to face a force of around 4,000 enemy forces after they had invaded an allied land. His mission was a success and saw no enemy target to escape, with a minimal loss of life on our end."

Murmurs started a bit louder this time in shock that such a meager force had been lead against an enemy whose numbers dwarfed theirs 40 to 1, they silenced themselves as Iruka moved on.

"Feral was recognised as a master teacher, and taught various important figures throughout the village, Hokage-sama even admitted that he fell under Feral-sama's teachings for a brief time. But others you may recognize are the various clan heads several of you belong to, including the Inuzuka, Hyuuga, Akamichi, Nara, and Uchiha clans."

Said heirs of those clans gave small noises of shock, though Sasuke simply gave a dismissive huff though Kiba Inuzuka with wide eyes nearly shouted. "No way!"

Iruka snorted in amusement at the reaction of the boy. "According to Hokage-sama, yes way. Included in that list of impressive students, was in fact our Yondaime! He had a brief few months teaching him with his master, Jiraiya of the Sannin. Their tutelage of the Yondaime saw a rapid growth of the man's fighting prowess by several leaps!"

Powering through the outburst of shock Iruka kept going. "But one instance is what made it clear to me what would have all four Hokage claim Feral is a true shinobi. Towards the end of the second war, Feral-sama had been sent to aid in the removal of several teams of deep cover agents who had been discovered and had been forced to retreat. Feral-sama ordered them to continue on as he defended a stretch of plains, as a battalion of Iwa shinobi who had been in pursuit of our spies. The Tsuchikage had sent a battalion because he had discovered our shinobi had gathered highly sensitive secrets and future plans for the war and deemed that no amount of shinobi would be too much as the damage the lost intel would cause would effectively be their downfall. Sending the battalion ahead the Tsuchikage followed after as extra insurance to ensure the intel was recovered. Getting a message back from one of our few remaining spies, our Sandaime Hokage readied himself and headed out to engage the Tsuchikage and repel him if needed. Rushing out he passed the recovered teams, pausing to assess their condition before sending them along to deliver the intel safely behind Konoha walls. Reaching the plain he was met with the sight of Feral, standing with the beaten and bloodied Tsuchikage by his throat in one hand aloft in the air. Approaching the Sandaime caught the end of what Feral was saying to his beaten opponent. As he recalls it goes; 'I have laid low your warriors. I have reaped them like a scythe before grass, I have climbed the mountains made from their corpses, swam entire oceans of their blood, drank the tears of their loved ones, and fed upon their despair as I watched the life drain from their eyes. Yet…"

"Yet you spirit stays strong, despite all this, so I will not continue to break your spirit, I will break your body!"

The sudden voice from above gained several shrieks or shocked outcries as the students leapt away, turning to look from behind Iruka who had been shocked silent from the sudden appearance of someone. Once the class had fled to behind their two teachers who had tensed they looked up at the Academy towards a window. Sitting there with legs crossed and hands clasped on the top knee, Feral stared down at them all with an amused glint in his eyes.

Chuckling his eyes crinkled as he spoke. "With my declaration made, I lifted that midget Kage, and brought him down into my knee, and so became 'He who broke the Tsuchikage's back'. But that's enough of history. Hello children, I am Feral, and it's a pleasure to meet you."

 **There you have it. Now a few people may be wondering about certain points in this chapter, but I'll quell that now. Writer's privilege. Several facts or details become lost in the story and are often not revisited, such as how the Tsuchikage gained his back problems. I honestly can't recall it and for a moment I had thought it was Madara. Honestly I didn't bother since the real version of that has no impact on this story so I slipped in my own version.**

 **I reiterate, that Feral is roughly the same level as Tobirama, who back in the height of his power, was only second to his brother and Madara. In the few instances we see him in the series, short as they are, he is overshadowed and his brother and Madara, limited in ability during his first resurection, and in the fourth ninja war he's again overshadowed by his brother and Madara as well as Naruto and Sasuke. When we see the scene where he hands the hat to Hiruzen, it can be inferred that he's tired, old, and low on chakra, leaving him vulnerable to the enemy at that time. I firmly believe that Tobirama in his prime could easily handle two battalions worth of Shinobi ON HIS OWN.**

 **It's that belief that sets the bar I have for Feral. Between personal power and experience, Feral is firmly in the top 1% in power rankings of the elemental nations.**

 **I will probably add an Omake in the next chapter for shits and giggles.**

 **Please leave a review, no flaming.**


	5. Chapter 5

Evaluations

 **Had to redo this chapter due to it somehow becoming a wall of garbled mess. please message or leave a review if this happens again, as when I posted this last night I couldn't see the errors in place.**

 **Again I don't own anything but my OC**

Feral had moved himself from the building and now stood in front of the line of children, who after the initial shock had managed to calm down and return to their lineup. Running his gaze over the group he could easily recognize the clan heirs as most of them were almost carbon copies of their parents, with the most difference in a couple being their gender. Then there were the two who he'd be taking along with him today after the little show he'd have to do to make it appear like this wasn't blatant favoritism, which it was. The blonde was grinning ear to ear and Feral knew it was only luck the hyperactive blonde had not shouted out his greeting and blowing the cover wide open. The bluenette was far calmer in comparison but Feral chalked that up to having to be naturally stoic via the Hyuuga clan dogma, and while not the best, she could keep from speaking up suddenly.

Feral sighed turning his attention onto the rest of the children and immediately wrote all of them off as future dropouts or cannon fodder. By the kami that one child had long bright pink hair! Mentally shaking his head he was glad he'd made his point to Sarutobi clear about why he was going to do what he'd be doing today.

Snapping an arm out he pointed at Mizuki who flinched at the sudden action and finger an inch from his face. "You, worthless third tier side character, go get the lesson plans for this class from now until graduation."

Mizuki caught off guard with the insult could only stutter in reply. "Th-third tier…?"

Annoyed the teacher didn't immediately follow his orders he turned and bellowed in the man's face, the force of the shout knocking off the bandana. "NOW!"

Face paled and covered in spittle the man bolted into the building leaving a dust trail.

Snorting in amusement Feral turned back to face the children, seeing most having covered their ears at the loudness of his shout, with a few - he'd later recognize as an Aburame, Nara, and the Uchiha - seeming to recognize his voice. Moving his other arm up in front of Iruka he held his hand up ready to grab something. "Class roster."

Iruka mentally noted to thank the Hokage for forewarning him about Feral's tendencies to issue orders or demand things at random, and handed the roster to Feral who immediately looked through the names listed. A beat of silence passed before Feral turned his head to address him.

"This is incomplete. Where is the Kurama?"

Blinking at the unexpected question Iruka took a few seconds to gather his thoughts before answering. "She never was enrolled Feral-sama. From what I'd been informed and gathered, she is currently being tutored by an up and coming Chunin who specializes in…"

Feral cut him off with a hand wave. "If she's being taught properly then it's not my concern." Returning to the list he looked over it again before looking up.

"Alright midgets, I'm splitting you in two distinct groups. Aburame, Hyuuga, Inuzuka, Nara, Uchiha, Yamanaka, Akimichi, go line up there." He jerked a thumb to a tree ten feet from the building.

The seven heirs shared an unsure glance before moving where they were told.

Satisfied for the moment Feral tossed the roster back to Iruka. "Now. Your teacher here informed you about me being here, and a little background as well. But I believe I cut him off before he could tell you why. To put it simply, I'm going to train two of you."

That started some excited whispers in each group before getting silenced by Feral clapping his hands.

"Quiet down brats. My training is nothing to take lightly. Every person I trained have become legends in their own rights, most notably the 3rd and 4th Hokage, along with some clan heads. Now I'm here to find the next generation to train. Unfortunately I'm forced to chose one child from a clan, as well as a civilian instead of me just grabbing whichever one of you brats I wanted and going from there."

Moving to the clan line he looked them over and snickered at his pre-prepared comments. "Now to get this over with I'll begin with you brats. You shouldn't be disheartened if I don't pick you because your parent should be able to pass on the partial training I gave them."

That lessened the tension a few had, though the Uchiha noticeably scowled at the causal reminder he had no one. Feral saw though the dismissal of it as the famed Arrogance of the Uchiha clan had pushed out any doubt that Feral wouldn't choose him. Well let's go ahead and burst that bubble with a rusty kunai.

Stepping in front of the Aburame, he cast his gaze up and down before huffing. "Carbon copy of your father, coat and all. Go get the training I gave him, and get a different coat or you'll be compared to him constantly.

Ignoring the sudden buzzing coming from the boy he moved to the Inuzuka. "You got most of your mothers looks but got enough from your father to not look like a fruit. Likely got your mothers temperament as well, not worth my time breaking you of that."

Again ignoring the growl from the boy he moved to the Akimichi. "Hmm, potential but you're to kind. Kindness is rare and I won't be the one to destroy it yet."

Moving to the Nara he huffed. "Unmotivated, too smart for your own good, and will make me put too much effort just to get you to get out of bed. But that's your clans nature. Maybe if you were female I'd consider it, the women of your clan are always more active."

At the Yamanaka he growled low. "Worthless, of all the heirs here you are the least powerful and that's because you obviously diet, hardly exercise or train. You probably fawn over some girly looking boy as well."

Ignoring the indignant squawk from the girl he moved to the Uchiha, giving one sweep of his eyes he ground out in sarcastic monotone. "Oh looky, the supposed 'last Uchiha', well hasn't my day been made. Probably have the same arrogance as your father though your face is more like your mothers. Your father's the only clan head I didn't train, but then again, he did try to sneak to my training ground and watch when I trained your mother. Kami Itachi just had to leave one worthless runt of his clan left to remind everyone of their shame."

The other heirs held their breath as the civilian group let out several gasps. Even Iruka sucked a breath in, no one had ever been so disrespectful of the boy since the clans tragedy, and most of the class knew the boy practically had the council attending to his needs. Most of the teachers had long been informed to give the Uchiha extra lessons if the boy asked - read; demanded - for them, and to streamline the boys time to ensure him to the top of the class.

Sasuke himself was confused and not a little angry at the blatant disrespect for not only himself, but for his clan, which only grew to rage when Feral gave a dismissive huff. Snarling the self styled avenger whirled at Feral. "What gives you the right to talk down the greatest clan this village has!"

Feral glanced at the boy giving an amused snort. "First, I have more right than most due to the fact I'm older than said most, secondly I didn't 'talk down' this villages greatest clan."

Sneering the ravenette ground out. "Then what do you call your comments?!"

Feral gave an eye smile. "Facts."

Before Sasuke could yell out his fury, Feral's gloved finger rose up and flicked him between the eyes, knocking him onto his back. Dazed Sasuke wasn't able to see the boot that suddenly knocked the air from his lungs as Feral stood over him, pinning him down.

With a tone dripping in condescension Feral growled out. "Let's inform everyone of more facts shall we? Fact one, the Uchiha clan has never been 'the greatest clan'. They were never the best in the past, and it'll never be the best in the future. Even when Madara Uchiha was alive, and arguably the second strongest person in the world, the clan was third strongest. Behind the clan of the strongest person alive the Senju, and behind the cousin clan of the Senju. Since then the closest the Uchiha clan has ever gotten, is 'second best', and that's only in this village. Even then there are clans outside the walls of this village that are stronger, even more so now your clan is made of a traitor and a runt."

Sasuke raged in silence, unable to speak due to the boot that would force out his breath every time he'd open his mouth to scream, rant, or deny the so called 'facts' this abomination spewed from his mouth. The boy could only stew in his impotent rage at his inability to even defend himself verbally.

Feral continued unabated. "Fact two, the Uchiha clan is the only clan on record, whose population dropped from triple digits to a single digit number OVERNIGHT! Your clan is one of several who have gone from thriving to near extinct, but your clan is the only one to do so in not only such a short amount of time, but during a time of peace! No wars, no invasions, no end all be all battle. Your clan died in their sleep, at the hands of one of their own! It'd be funny if it wasn't so outright pathetic!"

During the rant Mizuki had returned, staring in silent horror at what was happening. The council would be at his neck having let this happen, and while he could shift the blame onto Iruka, he didn't need any extra scrutiny if any of his plans were to come to fruition for his master. Steeling himself he handed the documents he retrieved to Iruka before walking up to Feral, a sentence almost ready to exit his lips before it was silenced as Feral stomped hard enough to knock the boy out before in one fluid motion lifted the now unconscious boy and tossed him at Mizuki, who barely caught him in his surprise.

Before Mizuki could even attempt to berate the man his voice was cut through by Feral's growl. "Fourth tier side character, take that useless shit sack to the hospital. He's got a damaged ego."

Seeing the damaged Uchiha in hand Mizuki shifted priorities to take care of the child and immediately turned and ran off, muttering to himself about how he went from a third to fourth tier.

Feral held his snort hearing that. He'd deal with the fool if he overstepped himself later. Holding a hand out it was filled with the lesson plans as he tossed Iruka the roster. Looking through it he moved slowly to the civilian group and his godson. Rifling through the papers he narrowed his eyes seeing how much the curriculum had changed since he'd last took a glance when the brat Minato had asked for his opinion. History, sure was needed, but not past the first year! The classes were barely doing exercises, and only had a weekly spar! Minato had written for three a week!

His scowl deepened shuffling through each year of plans before tossing the papers up and setting it aflame. "Absolute garbage! This would leave these brats so weak they'd never even be able to even attempt to be Genin! Literally the only ones who'd make it would be the clan children who are constantly training and maybe one or two civilian children with a half decent mindset! Classroom teaching four days a week with the fifth the only day you do any half assed outside activity? Hyuuga!"

Hinata jolted at the sudden shift of attention to her by a clearly annoyed Feral. "H-hai?"

Feral pointed towards the clan sector. "Inform your father as of now you will be withdrawn from the academy for four days of the week! You don't need more than that with this worthless curriculum being used. Hop to it!"

Giving a shaky nod she scampered away getting a few jealous looks at her being dismissed.

"The clan brats can go as well. Go inform your parents I said to give you 'my training'. That should cover you brats."

The rest began to move away before he caught Ino by her ponytail. "Not you. Tell daddy dearest that I will be by to have a 'heart to heart'. Be sure to use those exact words."

His glare silenced any protest she may have had and she gave a shaky nod before bolting after he let her hair go.

Rounding on the clanless children and Naruto he walked along their line twice. Turning away he made a show of rubbing his face in unconcealed disappointment. Turning back to them he ran his gaze over them again before letting out a long resigned sigh.

He pointed to Naruto and then a civilian boy on the other end. "You two have the most chakra of this bunch, step forward for evaluation. You, ashy, what's your name?"

'Ashy' stepped forward, and presented himself. Though average in looks and build, he had a lean musculature that showed he took the training somewhat seriously. His defining feature was the ash grey hair reminiscent of Kakashi.

 _A possible extended family member?_ Feral mused.

Clearing his throat the boy spoke up. "I am Akira Hotora, Feral-sama."

Hotora… Ah yes he remembered now, a minor clan but had decent fire users and were adequate with small weapons like Kunai or daggers. Obviously he wouldn't be taking the boy to train as he had to pretend he might for this facade, but that didn't mean he couldn't help a future ally gain strength through proper guidance.

Humming Feral nodded. "Knew a few of your family back in the day. Fairly strong and skilled. I don't think you're a good match for my teaching style, but that doesn't mean I'll leave your latent talents untouched. Within a week I'll have a jounin I think could help you come along and pull you out of the academy for the day, I won't make promises, but they'll likely test you for an apprenticeship. You're excused."

Akira beamed at the mention of a possible apprenticeship and took off for home to alert his relatives.

Feral then rounded on Naruto. Making a small spectacle of it he circled the boy who could barely restrain his excitement.

Mentally Naruto had thought it all a big prank, since he knew Feral was coming to get him so hadn't really worried about not being picked. Instead he had decided to ham it up a bit and restrain his usual bombastic nature to aid the prank along.

Coming back in front of Naruto, Feral crossed his arms and hummed with closed eyes for a moment before nodding.

"You have more chakra than everyone here combined, myself excluded. You'll do, at the very least you'll survive past week one."

Naruto grinned wide at this, ready to yell out his joy when it was cut off by a shriek.

"Why That dobe?! Sasuke is far superior than that dead last!"

Apparently his intimidation couldn't quite contain the unnatural mind of a fangirl. Casting his yellow eyes he took in the young girl who had spoken up. Blinking his eye twitched seeing her, with pink hair that shined with what he could smell were plenty of hair products, and unblemished hands free of signs of any proper hand to hand combat, he got all the information he needed.

Sneering he let a minor amount of killing intent out, freezing the girl and choking the breath from her briefly before he let it go, letting her gasp for breath.

"Be silent. You are by far one of the most worthless students here. A mere glance at you showed me you have a naive world view, which isn't unnatural for most girls your age, but you aren't most girls! You are a shinobi in training! Your worthless fantasies about being rescued like some princess are just that! Fantasy! Out of a hundred times where you might be in any situation even remotely similar to that situation, your kidnapper would likely kill you long before ANYONE could even get close to finding you 50% of that! 45% would be where you get killed in front of your so called 'rescuer' or get caught in crossfire from weapons or jutsu!"

Taking a breath he calmed himself. Turning away he beckoned Naruto to follow who had lost his excitement during Feral's rant and gulped as he followed after. The two turned a corner leaving a near crying Sakura and a startled group of students and teacher.

One purple haired girl who hadn't been hit enough by the KI to stifle her managed to ask. "What about the last 5%?"

Iruka shook himself before looking to his student. "The last five percent is broken in two. 1% is where you get rescued unscathed… the remaining 4% is something not for younger ears. All of you are dismissed."

Turning away Iruka walked into the building, wondering how he'd explain the years curriculum problem to the Hokage.

Walking towards their shared home Naruto stewed in thought. He didn't want to admit it to his uncle, but he had thought that life as a shinobi involved rescuing damsels in distress and fighting bad guys. Seriously that's all he ever seemed to hear from the civilians about it when he managed to eavesdrop on their conversations.

Feral disrupted those thoughts when he rapped his knuckles on Naruto's head, getting a yelp of pain from the blonde and making him hold his head.

"Pay attention boy, I called your name twice. Now I want you to head to the house, I need to stop by the Yamanaka's house and pay the girls father a...what do you call it?"

Naruto offered, "A visit?"

Seemingly ignoring his companions offer he snapped his fingers. "Beating! That's it. Now run along and if you get hungry have some food from the fridge, it's healthy for you. And if you don't eat it then I'll ban ramen for a month."

Ignoring the boys sudden whine he turned heading to the nearby flower shop.

 **I had a long thing on my previous attempt giving a few minor spoilers and explaining a few more things. currently I'm too tired for this now and will be doing so next chapter. Please leave nice reviews and no flames**


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